thanks Johny and malcolm. katzeimsack, honest, i'll have something for you tomorrow!
Bort: careful what you wish for. your "sexy mature arse" is still there, but not a whole lot else if this is too far out of left field for you, then delegate the concept to some other needy fellow.
Reading her as half of an old robot that was slain by a wide laser beam, fixed up and fitted up with a nice corset and thigh pads.
Mask has been welded into the gap and an exposed boiler/power core is spewing out light/fumes/smoke which casts an aura around her. *two thumbs up*
Is the large disc meant to be a yin yang? The yang half would need to be shattered it if is.
Bort: read into it as much as you fancy but no, there's no yin yang anywhere on her person or the glow-y energy balls. if you see one it's purely coincidental.
well i'm still working on the paintover, but I suppose people might like to see some work-in-progress: here's Mecha Hitler as a quick 3D mockup. i tend to do these for overtly mechanical designs, it makes life easier for me and the modeler i'm working with (that's right katzeimsack, i'll pass along the mockup so doing the model will be smooth sailing).
well it's not quite finished so i'll just continue showing works in progress today, thanks for the comments you two.
first of all my good friend Fritz, who knows about a million times more about max than i do, did a few quick vray renders for me to play with. i ended up using this one:
for a base. currently the paintover is about half finished, a ton of details (hitler's head, most of the mech itself, the guns, the background) still need attending to, but i figured you'd like to see anyhow:
i ended up not going with the more conventional tan+red scheme associated with Hitler... we'll see how this goes. the glowing swastika will likely become at least somewhat decayed.
Ahh gauss, I didn't know you did that model when you posted in #md, sorry if I came off disrespectful. Thought it was a paint over you were doing for someone else.
That concept is some true gauss penis luv.
sort of a warm-up before working on the mecha a little more.. but i ended up working on it more. Aegix, this is your freebie, a maggot-ridden ghost woman. enjoy!
awesome work so far gauss. Really looking forward to seing to seing what you come up for me. I'm pretty confident you know what you're doing, but If you want to juggle with some ideas just let me know?
updated Sectaur's "anus monster" with full colors, had fun with this one. as i mention on my site, i decided to have embedded jewels on his forehead crest in lieu of a silly looking little crown or something.
edit: whipped up a quick ortho to help Sectaurs out.
Hey Guass, if you (or anyone else with some imagination and an inclination to help out a fellow polycounter who's short of skills), could I get a little help with my concept. I've got the background and a fairly weak concept down but I could really use someone with some imagination and drawing skills to run with it and take it somewhere less... sucky.
If no ones got time I can deal with what I've got but I'd be really grateful for a quick sketch or some such.
Jackablade: sure. This just hit at the right time so I painted over your concept... I know very little is left but I really did start with a paint-over If you don't like it be sure to hand it off to someone else, there are plenty of concept-less urchins coming to me.
thanks guys, that one was a fury that really came together quickly, i enjoyed working on it. just as i did this concept tag for Rick:
and don't worry nkoste, i haven't forgotten you, i have a concept in progress for you that just needs some cleaning up and cool-ifying, right now it's kinda dumb looking
Sorry about all the trouble you went through making that amazing concept gauss. I've been handed too many projects this month, and I don't think i'll have enough time to finish that entry. Feel free to let someone else take it over. I'll still model it, just not in time for the competition. Thanks again. This would be a dishonerable discharge right?
alright then, i've done something like 15 concepts for this competition. as it stands, roughly 3 of them look like they're going to be finished, Sectaur's, Katzeimsack's, and possibly Bort's. and i've got some paying work now too, so here's the deal: if you want to model anything in this thread for the compo, go for it. it's open season.
edit: nkoste i am still finishing up your concept, but i think that'll be my last for the compo.
I'm glad you're still doing mine - it's totally understandable you want to stop now. I thought you would give in long time ago honestly. I'm amazed you got this far. I will finish mine - that's the deal.
The first is a mostly abandoned concept for Nkoste for a saboteur general. Abandoned since he looked mischevious and kind of nice rather than evil, and because it's a regurgitated version of half a dozen different characters of the slinky rodent type, from Gollum on up.
This is my revised concept, which is a brother piece to the Psionic I designed for Downsizer. It's literally the woman's brother, also a psionic general of some kind. I dunno, Nkoste you have your free pick of this one, the one above it, or any of those other concepts in this thread that people haven't claimed or done anything with, like that gorilla-man or the giant bird or whatever.
and finally just one that I banged out pretty quickly but wasn't really all that happy with. This one is also up for grabs
And so, the belated close of my participation in this contest. Please finish your entries people! This has really been an enjoyable and fruitful month for me because of this contest, and I thank you all for that.
Awesome big pic there gauss, you certainly did a hell of a lot!
Now I hope you don't mind if I give you a little crit... you probably know about it already, but if not, then all the better since it'll give you something to look out for in future!
Out of all these concepts, I can't see one that doesn't have a static pose. Even the running monster looks stiff and mechanical ... your designs, use of colour and shape is all really great, but when it comes to posing and presenting your characters, I've been noticing that often you're letting yourself down.
Granted that quite a few of them are concepts based on existing models so you had to go with their proportions for ease of translation (Rick Stirling's, for instance), but a lot of the "from scratch" concepts, while conceptually strong, are often lacking a certain punch that a more lively, extreme and fluid pose and motion would add.
Now I'm not saying you should go and make all your concepts really extreme and motion-ful just for the sake of it, obviously they're concepts for building a model off, and the modeller needs a good reference, but I think it's possible to give an interesting and characterised pose to a character concept without compromising the useability of the concept as a modelling aid.
I don't really have any particular advice on how you might go about making this change, since I'm not much of a concept artist myself, but I could maybe try a paintover to illustrate what I mean. You probably have a boatload in a reference folder on your hard drive, but take a look at (off the top of my head) some of Hawkprey's concepts, for example ... sometimes even just the way they're standing conveys something about their character, more than just "I am here and I am standing upright."
Hope you understand my meaning, it's not my intention to undermine all the fine work you've done here, just drawing attention to a possible shortcoming in your work that a little focusing and polishing might really go the extra mile on.
OK, I did a really quick sketch to illustrate my point. I probably picked a really bad example, but I think it gets the idea across.
The initial drawing, although depicting motion, doesn't actually look like it's moving... I think this is because of the linear relationships between a lot of the limbs and the general positioning of the body.
Here's what I reckon would be a more dynamic version of the same character (pushed to extremes to illustrate the point):
I think this linear thing also applies to a lot of your character concepts here, they're just "standing there" ... not really creating any interest in and of themselves as entities.
OK I'm babbling now, take that for whatever you think it's worth
no no, much obliged mate! i'm glad i did the compilation image, because it definitely makes it easier to pick up on these kinds of things... it's a great way to cap off the contest to get this kind of crit.
i suppose i should feign some ignorance of this problem and thank you for the new insight, but sadly i've known about it for a long time
basically for as long as i've been drawing... or at least since high school, my two big problems were stiff/nonfluid poses and lack of color. now in the past few years i think i've tackled the color problem fairly well--once upon a time i worked almost always in black and white, but these days i'm working in color almost always, and a couple of pieces done for this contest i'm pretty proud of the color. getting to know Painter IX better has really helped out in that department.
but on the other hand, the longstanding issue of stiff-as-all-hell characters and poses is basically unresolved, as you've pointed out. i do appreciate you taking the time out for the linedrawing comparison, because it's a good illustration of what's missing--dynamic forms.
i remember watching Marko draw at the Austin CA.ORG meet, and the biggest thing i learned from watching him is that composition and flow are king; the first lines he sets down dictate every line that come after in a way that is almost always dynamic and interesting to look at.
i think the biggest reason i haven't tackled it head-on so far is a lack of system memory, to use a good and nerdy computer comparison. when i was really just trying to start learning Painter IX, i was trying to paint a new and interesting concept AND learn the tools at the same time... and i didn't have the "system memory" to do it. both processes are so intensive, either only one would come out well, or both would fail. so i started doing some of those Q3 character studies that had only minor design changes, and suddenly i had no trouble focusing on learning the tools better.
so in other words, the overriding priority for these concepts were the designs themselves, and secondarily the color and rendering quality. i had enough mental space to get those goals accomplished on most of these... but because good, dynamic posing is still not really one of my strong suits, it continued to languish.
so anyway... this isn't me trying to make excuses, honestly! it's a great crit and i think this was the perfect time to bring it up front and center. in fact, i think in my up and coming personal work, i'll get some character i'm already familiar with (or just plain old fashioned figure drawing) and concentrate on breaking out of that long standing starched stiff gauss stuff
Ah, yeah, I see what you mean about focusing on certain elements in order to bring them to the fore and polish them one at a time, it makes sense.
Good plan to take a familiar character or just human figures and set about posing them in interesting ways... I look forward to seeing what comes of it
Replies
Bort: careful what you wish for. your "sexy mature arse" is still there, but not a whole lot else
wowzor, sure puts my crappy blandness to shame.
Reading her as half of an old robot that was slain by a wide laser beam, fixed up and fitted up with a nice corset and thigh pads.
Mask has been welded into the gap and an exposed boiler/power core is spewing out light/fumes/smoke which casts an aura around her. *two thumbs up*
Is the large disc meant to be a yin yang? The yang half would need to be shattered it if is.
well i'm still working on the paintover, but I suppose people might like to see some work-in-progress: here's Mecha Hitler as a quick 3D mockup. i tend to do these for overtly mechanical designs, it makes life easier for me and the modeler i'm working with (that's right katzeimsack, i'll pass along the mockup so doing the model will be smooth sailing).
first of all my good friend Fritz, who knows about a million times more about max than i do, did a few quick vray renders for me to play with. i ended up using this one:
for a base. currently the paintover is about half finished, a ton of details (hitler's head, most of the mech itself, the guns, the background) still need attending to, but i figured you'd like to see anyhow:
i ended up not going with the more conventional tan+red scheme associated with Hitler... we'll see how this goes. the glowing swastika will likely become at least somewhat decayed.
That concept is some true gauss penis luv.
Man, if I wasn't already working on two, I'd beg for that one.
I think I will add details and give him a little bit more NAZI feeling..
http://forgottenhope.bf1942files.com/images/news/126%20-%20P3Nskirts.jpg
I'll get started on it tonight.
edit: whipped up a quick ortho to help Sectaurs out.
If no ones got time I can deal with what I've got but I'd be really grateful for a quick sketch or some such.
You can find what I've done so far here:
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php...SID=#Post103077
and don't worry nkoste, i haven't forgotten you, i have a concept in progress for you that just needs some cleaning up and cool-ifying, right now it's kinda dumb looking
edit: nkoste i am still finishing up your concept, but i think that'll be my last for the compo.
Mine is being rebuilt in two places - work and home, thats why there have been no more shots recently. It will be completed
The first is a mostly abandoned concept for Nkoste for a saboteur general. Abandoned since he looked mischevious and kind of nice rather than evil, and because it's a regurgitated version of half a dozen different characters of the slinky rodent type, from Gollum on up.
This is my revised concept, which is a brother piece to the Psionic I designed for Downsizer. It's literally the woman's brother, also a psionic general of some kind. I dunno, Nkoste you have your free pick of this one, the one above it, or any of those other concepts in this thread that people haven't claimed or done anything with, like that gorilla-man or the giant bird or whatever.
and finally just one that I banged out pretty quickly but wasn't really all that happy with. This one is also up for grabs
And so, the belated close of my participation in this contest. Please finish your entries people! This has really been an enjoyable and fruitful month for me because of this contest, and I thank you all for that.
You make my balls want to drop gauss.
Gauss went back in time and showed me this thread and made mine drop at the tender age of 10.
[/ QUOTE ]
LOL sectaurs!
That last one is really sweet! (ok all of them)
Now I hope you don't mind if I give you a little crit... you probably know about it already, but if not, then all the better since it'll give you something to look out for in future!
Out of all these concepts, I can't see one that doesn't have a static pose. Even the running monster looks stiff and mechanical ... your designs, use of colour and shape is all really great, but when it comes to posing and presenting your characters, I've been noticing that often you're letting yourself down.
Granted that quite a few of them are concepts based on existing models so you had to go with their proportions for ease of translation (Rick Stirling's, for instance), but a lot of the "from scratch" concepts, while conceptually strong, are often lacking a certain punch that a more lively, extreme and fluid pose and motion would add.
Now I'm not saying you should go and make all your concepts really extreme and motion-ful just for the sake of it, obviously they're concepts for building a model off, and the modeller needs a good reference, but I think it's possible to give an interesting and characterised pose to a character concept without compromising the useability of the concept as a modelling aid.
I don't really have any particular advice on how you might go about making this change, since I'm not much of a concept artist myself, but I could maybe try a paintover to illustrate what I mean. You probably have a boatload in a reference folder on your hard drive, but take a look at (off the top of my head) some of Hawkprey's concepts, for example ... sometimes even just the way they're standing conveys something about their character, more than just "I am here and I am standing upright."
Hope you understand my meaning, it's not my intention to undermine all the fine work you've done here, just drawing attention to a possible shortcoming in your work that a little focusing and polishing might really go the extra mile on.
Cheers!
The initial drawing, although depicting motion, doesn't actually look like it's moving... I think this is because of the linear relationships between a lot of the limbs and the general positioning of the body.
Here's what I reckon would be a more dynamic version of the same character (pushed to extremes to illustrate the point):
I think this linear thing also applies to a lot of your character concepts here, they're just "standing there" ... not really creating any interest in and of themselves as entities.
OK I'm babbling now, take that for whatever you think it's worth
i suppose i should feign some ignorance of this problem and thank you for the new insight, but sadly i've known about it for a long time
basically for as long as i've been drawing... or at least since high school, my two big problems were stiff/nonfluid poses and lack of color. now in the past few years i think i've tackled the color problem fairly well--once upon a time i worked almost always in black and white, but these days i'm working in color almost always, and a couple of pieces done for this contest i'm pretty proud of the color. getting to know Painter IX better has really helped out in that department.
but on the other hand, the longstanding issue of stiff-as-all-hell characters and poses is basically unresolved, as you've pointed out. i do appreciate you taking the time out for the linedrawing comparison, because it's a good illustration of what's missing--dynamic forms.
i remember watching Marko draw at the Austin CA.ORG meet, and the biggest thing i learned from watching him is that composition and flow are king; the first lines he sets down dictate every line that come after in a way that is almost always dynamic and interesting to look at.
i think the biggest reason i haven't tackled it head-on so far is a lack of system memory, to use a good and nerdy computer comparison. when i was really just trying to start learning Painter IX, i was trying to paint a new and interesting concept AND learn the tools at the same time... and i didn't have the "system memory" to do it. both processes are so intensive, either only one would come out well, or both would fail. so i started doing some of those Q3 character studies that had only minor design changes, and suddenly i had no trouble focusing on learning the tools better.
so in other words, the overriding priority for these concepts were the designs themselves, and secondarily the color and rendering quality. i had enough mental space to get those goals accomplished on most of these... but because good, dynamic posing is still not really one of my strong suits, it continued to languish.
so anyway... this isn't me trying to make excuses, honestly!
cheers MoP, i really do appreciate it.
Good plan to take a familiar character or just human figures and set about posing them in interesting ways... I look forward to seeing what comes of it